


Love

by Ione



Category: Inda series - Sherwood Smith
Genre: Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Oblivious, Older Characters, Travel, What Happened After, Yeah he's still hot, grumpy old women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 11:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ione/pseuds/Ione
Summary: Tdor never thought she'd travel. There were a lot of things she never thought she'd do . . .





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bygoshbygolly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bygoshbygolly/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding shirt.

Tdor watched with open admiration as Inda tied off his thread into a knot. Gnarled and scarred as his hands were, he still sewed far more neatly than she did. He flexed his hand and broke the thread before she could offer a knife. “There. I’d always meant to reinforce that cuff. Now it’s done.”

Then he smoothed his hands tenderly over the wedding shirt that Tdor had made and embroidered, stitch by painful stitch, that terrible year. He held it up, smiling at Tdor, his brown eyes as warm and innocent of guile as they’d been when he was ten years old. “Are you certain our daughter really wants my shirt instead of getting someone there to make one for Fox’s boy?”

“That’s what she said. Or,” Tdor amended conscientiously. “Shendan said she said. Hadand didn’t dare write directly and ask. Well, she couldn’t, with that broken arm. But I gather she was afraid we'd see it as an imposition.”

“I'm surprised one of the Darchelde girls didn't offer to make one in her stead. I know they all get along well,” Inda said.

Tdor turned up her hand. “Do you really want to hear the gossip about it? There’s more than you might think.”

“About _wedding shirts_?” Inda said incredulously. Then rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. “Right, people can make a fuss over anything. What’s this about?”

“Here goes, and you can stop me at any time. So, last autumn Fabern Ola-Vayir said it was a servant’s job to make wedding shirts, and _she_ is a future _gunvaer_. Liet the peacemaker offered instead. Hastred made the mistake of thanking her when Fabern could hear, so Fabern threw a fit, and Hadand said that Hastred would get a new House tunic as next king, and no one would see his shirt under it. That was supposed to end the matter. But of course it didn’t. It caused a furor among the girls, who pretty much all loathe Fabern, save the inevitable few bootlickers.”

Tdor scribbled in the air, indicating the letters constantly crossing the kingdom. “In the course of righteous indignation the girls somehow dragged in Mudface Tya-Vayir, who—you probably don’t even know this—hadn’t made Hawkeye’s wedding shirt, or her current husband’s, what’s-his-name Ola-Vayir.”

“They still talk about Dannor?” Inda grimaced. “A day is a good one when I don’t have to think about her. I really wish you’d burn that tapestry.”

“I will give you anything else you ask for, my dear, but your mother loves that tapestry. So does everyone else in the castle. Don’t look at it.”

“Ugh,” Inda grumped.

“So, to wind this up, there’s a fervor for being traditional right now, and I guess Shendan suggested that there were few things more traditional than using your father’s wedding shirt, if it was still around. Of course she knows yours is, because I’ve told her in letters that you always wear it on our anniversary, and our Hadand talks about her happy memories growing up and seeing you wearing it when we celebrate our wedding day.”

Tdor kissed Inda again, then added, “Finally, Shendan made a very good point in saying that if _I_ carried it to them then took it away, instead of sending it by a runner, everybody would be happy—and I’d get to see a daughter married. Which few of us do. I doubt very much that Evred would object to my crossing the border into Darchelde.”

That settled it for Inda. “Promise you’ll bring it back? You know I can’t wear anything else that day.”

Tdor laughed. “Inda, I did a dreadful job on this shirt. I wouldn’t even take it to Darchelde if it wasn’t our daughter who asked for it.”

He just smiled at her, and she gazed back helplessly. Useless to explain to him that though she’d used the very best linen, she knew her embroidery was terrible, even worse than her seam sewing. That wedding shirt had only meant to be worn the once. She had begged him for years to let her order a new one, most often in recent years when he romped with the children and tore one of the seams she had sewn so badly. She always felt terrible, especially when he ran upstairs to mend it. He certainly ought not to have to repair his own wedding shirt!

“I love it because _you_ made it,” he said, rising to kiss her. “But it has to come back. It has to be this one, the one I wore on the first of the happiest days of my life.”

“At least let me fix the boats,” she pleaded—she had planned to try improving the shirt on the journey to Darchelde, just to uphold the honor of Choreid Elgaer.

Inda’s gaze brightened, then glistened. She held her breath, but the tears didn’t fall.

He laughed inside, that laughter so close to tears that it hollowed him to the heart, at the notion that his beloved Tdor would ‘improve’ the embroidery of the boats when she still had never seen a ship and would not know one from an actual boat. Her generosity made him love her more, a love so deep and so powerful it sometimes hurt, though he could never figure out why.

His smile widened, and she said, “You’re laughing at me.”

“Never.”

“Well _I’m_ laughing at my every crooked stitch,” she said, sighing. At least, she thought wistfully, the repairs he’d made in his neat sailor stitching made the sorry thing slightly less disreputable-looking.

The way he ran his rough thumb over the knots in her embroidery before he handed it to her made it clear that he cherished the errors, though for the life of her she could not comprehend why. But she knew she would never completely understand him. She loved him the fiercer for it, she reflected as she took the shirt, folded it up, and slid it into the bag that would rest in her saddle gear during the trip to Darchelde.

First they had to say their goodbyes. Their eldest son Jarend, of course, was gone with Whipstick and the riders on their border round, and Kenda was in the royal city, finishing his year as a horsetail. To keep from straining the rules too much, they had agreed that Inda would skirt Darchelde’s border and ride directly to the royal city, so that Tdor could go into the treaty-forbidden Montredavan-An jarlate with the wedding shirt their daughter had requested.

She and Inda went first to the Iofre’s tower to bid her farewell, then walked hand and hand through the castle, Tdor with the precious bag tucked under her free arm. Rialden Marlo-Vayir’s voice rose from the stable court as she drilled the castle girls under Noren’s watchful eye.

The strict lines broke up when Inda and Tdor appeared, carrying their travel bags. The girls shrilled their farewells and pelted Tdor with verbal messages to pass to Hadand, which only ended when a runner appeared to say that the honor guard was ready with saddled horses.

All those on liberty, or who could find an excuse to be near the front gates, promptly gathered to cheer them as they rode out.

Tdor’s heart brimmed with sweet and poignant memory: the last time she and Inda had taken a long ride together was soon after their wedding. She had felt so old then, but now, looking back, it seemed they were so very young.

Of course there was no Signi this time, long departed to the north. Yet she was present in mind, for Tdor rode to keep a promise, though Inda was not going to find out about it.

She and the riders matched pace with Inda, effortless and unspoken so that it seemed a natural gait; Tdor had come to understand that the best thing she could do for Inda was to avoid presenting him with two equally balanced choices, in which the one not chosen might cause him as much regret as the chosen one would content him. She knew that though he was intensely, gratefully happy on the surface, he was also aware of that happiness. It seemed he would never again be capable of the sublime obliviousness with which everyone else took happiness for granted.

Even the weather seemed to cooperate, except for one fast-moving storm that resulted in them huddling together within a single bedroll, and laughing as if they were boy and girl again as they tried to fit the angles and curves of bodies within the narrow confines of fabric constructed to contain one.

The next morning they emerged into a cooler world from which summer’s dust had been washed. They rode on under a pure sky, occasionally singing ballads, she with her scarcely adequate soprano, and Inda harmonizing with an unexpectedly fine, deep baritone.

A week later they reached Darchelde under a sky streaked with high clouds. Aware of a riding of pair of Montrei-Vayir scouts who had withdrawn to a circumspect distance once they spotted the green-and-silver owl banner, she and Inda paused to say their farewells.

Tdor leaned over to kiss him, careful to keep her smile bright. She knew that any sign of tears would hurt him. “I look forward to seeing you and Kenda again,” she said.

“You too,” Inda muttered into her neck.

A quick, hard squeeze that left her breathless, and Inda and his honor guard trotted up the north turnoff, banners fluttering in the summer breeze. The king’s Guard fell in behind at a respectful distance.

Tdor signaled with a raised fist to her riding of women and turned east into the wooded hills.

They were spotted by a roving patrol before nightfall. The Montredavan-An riders led them to a good inn, where they spent the night, setting out at sunup the next day in order to reach Darchelde castle before sunset.

Halfway there they were met by a group at the gallop. Tdor’s heart lurched when she recognize in the lead rider her daughter’s flyaway hair.

“Ma!” Hadand—known to the Montredavan-An family as Arrow—shouted as soon as she could be heard, Inda’s grin brightening her round face.

Tdor ran her gaze hungrily over her lanky daughter, noting that though of course the broken arm that had occasioned her bringing Inda’s wedding shirt had healed enough to enable her to leave off the sling, Hadand was still favoring her right hand. Though she never admitted it out loud, Arrow was always Hadand to her mother, who had honored Hadand-Gunvaer with the name. ‘Arrow’ was a name for her daughter’s Montredavan-An life, all quite appropriate, but Tdor secretly cherished what she could of her daughter’s Algara-Vayir life.

As the parties closed, Hadand was already uttering a stream of questions that Tdor could not answer fast enough—and she must wait to ask her own, knowing that that time would come.

It did, as they crested a hill and approached the castle. There they paused, Hadand grinning with pride as her mother gazed and gazed, clearly impressed. Tdor privately thought Darchelde handsomer than Evred’s castle in the royal city, an opinion she kept to herself.

She had no occasion to change that opinion as they arrived under the eyes of alert female sentries, black and gold banners flying over their heads. Marend and Shendan were both there at the great doors to greet her, dark hair and light side by side.

Marend spoke words of welcome with smiling grace, and Shendan shot out an insouciant stream of jokes as Tdor was introduced to Young Shen, Fox and Marend’s daughter, the redhead who’d ridden to greet her with Hadand—and to whom Tdor had paid scarce attention, as all her mind was on her daughter. Then Shendan pulled forward a quiet, shy woman wearing a scribe’s robe. Her otherwise undistinguished features were dominated by a pointed chin that made Tdor wonder if she were related to the Cassads.

“This is Tesar,” Shen said with a proprietary air, then slid her arm around Tesar’s waist as the latter blushed.

Tdor thought with pleasure, Shendan’s got someone! She hoped for Shen’s sake that Tesar was a keeper, unlike Shen’s here-today-gone-tomorrow relationships when they were all young.

Tdor conscientiously paid off all arrears of attention now as the complication of Marend’s children by her mate and their respective cousins and first runners all were presented to her notice. She fell into the well-remembered pattern of being an appreciative audience, inwardly wondering if she was ever to see the mysterious Fox, when a tall, lean, black-clad man sauntered down a broad carved stairway.

Tdor stared, at first disbelieving that Evred Montrei-Vayir, King of Iasca Leror, could possibly have entered the citadel of his family’s ancient enemy. But then she saw that this man was more slender, his hair a brighter red, his bony face like and yet unlike Evred’s; most convincing was the difference in their manner, for Evred had never lounged with that careless grace, rather like a large and very intimidating hunting cat. 

Fox said, “Tdor? Welcome. I take it Inda chose to spare our watchdogs. Too bad! But he always had a soft heart.”

Not sure how to respond to that, Tdor said truthfully, “He asked me to pass along his greetings, and he’ll stop on his way back.”

“His last visit, no doubt?” Fox retorted.

“Next year will be Kenda’s last as a horsetail,” Tdor said, not certain how much else she ought to say.

But Fox’s slanted green gaze contained no question or surprise, and she suspected he knew very well that Inda was little likely to leave Choreid Elgaer again once his younger son came home for the last time. Despite the king’s repeated invitations—cordial to the point of fervency, but never quite to the level of orders—to attend Convocation, to visit the royal city. Tdor knew why the king wrote the way he did, and was thankful that Inda had never figured it out.

She realized time had passed as she considered these things, the pause having turned into a silence. She looked up, embarrassed, but Fox’s expression hadn’t changed.

Tdor found the idea of his awareness curiously unsettling. Something she needed to reflect on, she decided as Shendan waved an impatient hand and said, “Let’s not stand around all day, shall we?”

And Tdor was swept along to a dining hall, where fresh biscuits, excellent cheese, and newly picked grapes awaited them.

Fox didn’t stay to eat. Marend did, as a good host, but she remained largely silent as Hadand and Shendan competed with the evident ease of long habit, alternately talking and demanding news of everyone.

Tdor remembered to pass along the greetings from the castle girls. Hadand listened with a milder echo of Inda’s intensity, and Tdor was glad she’d remembered them all.

At the end, Hadand leaned forward. “Did you remember to bring it?”

In answer, Tdor picked up the bag that she’d set down beside her mat, and slid out Inda’s shirt. Marend stared down in diplomatic silence as Hadand spread it over the table, running her hands over the sadly lopsided ships and suns and running horses that were as fat as sheep and crook-legged as nothing that had ever lived. Tdor could see Marend's diplomatic stone face, but Shendan’s expression was more difficult to parse. Tdor had prepared herself for risibility, teasing, friendly scorn—she deserved it all—but her insides still cramped in anticipation.

Shendan’s expression was . . . odd

“I am not very good at embroidery,” Tdor felt obliged to say to those intent gazes, her face heating.

“You made it _that_ year,” Marend murmured, stretching out a hand, but not quite touching it.

Shendan looked up, her eyes unexpectedly glistening. With tears? Impossible. Not Shendan. It had to be suppressed laughter. And indeed, she drawled, “I would have been even drunker.”

“Shen!” Marend hissed, scandalized.

Shendan spread her hands, nonchalant as she had been as a teen. “It looks here like Tdor had had a few stiff ones before taking up her needle. And who would blame her? It was a terrible year.”

Hadand gathered up the shirt and pressed it close. “My da has worn it every year on their wedding anniversary. Indevan said, if it makes me happy to see it and think of my parents’ happiness, then he’s happy to wear it.”

Shendan rolled her eyes. “Indevan learned that mush-mouthed palaver in the royal city. But he has plenty of time to grow out of it.”

Marend flicked an uncertain glance Tdor’s way, but Tdor of course had known Shendan of old, and that comment shifted the topic from the badly made shirt. Relieved, she said, “Arrow, go give that shirt to Indevan’s runner, will you? Shen, I insist you show me your magic spells. I want to be impressed!”

“And so you shall be! Though I’m a mere beginner. But! I can cast any type of illusion. And let me tell you my plans for the future . . .”

Shendan and Tesar led the way up the winding stairs, walking hand in hand. Tdor didn’t know what to expect to be revealed about magic as they led the way to the tower that Shendan had made her own for her studies. Of course Tdor had watched when Signi restored the cleaning spells over the baths and water barrels, but she’d still expected something more . . . grandiose.

Tesar then vanished behind a stack of books she seemed to be copying as Shendan put her hands on her hips and said, “Well! Where shall we begin teaching you about magic?”

Shendan explained that learning the basics of magic was very much like learning to read and write. It took time to master letters before any words could be read, and what she had been doing was the equivalent of learning letters and how to group them into the simplest words.

Then she entertained Tdor with making small illusions, which were tricks of light that appeared to be shapes and even people. Then Shendan squinted at Tdor, muttered, did something quick with her fingers, and Tdor suddenly faced herself. A ghostly self, as she could see the honey-colored stone wall through this Tdor.

But for a few moment she looked into her own face, a worn face that called Tdor’s mother very much to mind. Long body, hands with large knuckles. When did they get that large? As for the rest—it was not a memorable face or form, brown and plain. But it showed her years of experience. Good years. Tdor liked those happiness lines at the corners of her eyes, and at either side of her plain mouth.

Then it dissolved into flickers of light. Illusions, after all, were merely tricks.

“So magic can’t make things?” she asked.

“Oh, you can, but it takes as much work as doing it with your hands. More, actually, for beginners. Magic is mostly for preserving things, like structures—roofs, walls, bridges. And purifying water. Except when, I gather, you get to the advanced magic, with which you can do things like travel from, say, here to the royal city in a heartbeat.”

“Really?” Tdor exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”

Shendan regarded Tdor fondly. Dear, practical Tdor, who never believed anything she couldn’t see. “Tdor, surely you’ve heard Inda’s stories. He was transferred like that, twice, on Ghost Island.”

Tdor glanced away. “Inda talks so little about those things that if I ever knew that, I’ve forgotten it.” What she couldn’t forget was Inda’s insistence on having seen actual ghosts on that island. To Tdor that episode had been evidence of how much his rough life had nearly driven him to madness, until Signi’s strange tale about seeing actual ghosts at the end of that mutual slaughter in the Andahi Pass. Neither Inda nor Tdor liked remembering that time.

“Well, it can. But I won’t get to learn it. I doubt Young Shen will, either. Did I mention I’m teaching her? But her daughter might. Did you know she and Biscuit Noth look like they’ll make a match?”

“Biscuit Noth—oh yes, Flatfoot’s son. How did they meet?”

“He did his year of patrolling the border,” Shendan said. “I don’t know exactly how they met—how do youngsters ever meet? But she volunteered to ride the inside border, and when he got liberty he was able to slip in, and . . .” She spread her hands. “They’ll make it work, somehow, if Evred Montrei-Vayir doesn’t decide to put them both up against a wall for treason.”

“Shendan,” Tesar murmured in mild reproach, then ducked down again behind her citadel of books.

“His ancestor assassinated my ancestor, and not all that long ago,” Shendan retorted in a less heated voice. “But that ride is long over, I know, I know. To return to my point, I intend to establish a magic learning center right here in Darchelde. All it will take it getting one of us to Sartor to learn, and bring back what she learns. You know it’ll have to be a she. I doubt the Sartorans would trust one of our ravening barbarian males.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Tdor said, from old habit cutting off Shendan’s flights into sarcastic hyperbole.

Her sincerity stopped Shendan, who regarded her, lips parted. The sarcasm in her expression vanished. Shendan uttered a laugh. “Of course I can’t goad you into a completely unfair and yet strangely satisfying tirade against the Sartorans _or_ Evred Montrei-Vayir. Let’s do something constructive instead. You listened to me maunder about learning magic for two years. How would you like some lessons in the basics of magic?”

Tdor said, “Yes!”

Shendan promptly launched into a stream of talk, interspersed with what sounded like nonsense language. She did her very best to cram several years into a single lesson, with the inevitable result: Tdor was soon hopelessly confused.

She strove to focus until Shendan stopped abruptly. “You’re bored.”

“I’m not,” Tdor protested.

“You look bored.”

“I’m . . . lost,” Tdor admitted.

“Why didn’t you stop me half a watch ago?”

“Because you are clearly enjoying telling me. I guess I’m enjoying your enthusiasm more than I’m actually learning,” Tdor said.

Shendan cast a deep, hissing sigh, and rolled her eyes so hard that Tdor felt them clank against her own skull. No, that was incipient headache.

“There you go again,” Shendan said, a tremor of laughter in her voice. She didn’t explain where Tdor was going, but swept toward the door. “Look at the light.” She waved at the window. “The watch bell is about to ring. Let’s go on down. I’m ready for supper. Aren’t you?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New threads in the weave.

Tdor met Fox and Marend's son Indevan at supper.

He was several years younger than Hadand, blond and startlingly handsome, with Fox’s green eyes, but the tranquility with which those eyes gazed into the world was Marend’s. He spoke seldom, but over the next few days, Tdor encountered him from time to time, and gained the impression that he enjoyed being a King’s Runner, he enjoyed his brief visits home, working alongside his father managing the vast Darchelde jarlate, and would be content to carry on with that whenever it came to him.

The only negative comment she ever heard him make was the day of the wedding, when he smoothed his hands down Inda’s wedding shirt, which was far too large for his slim frame, and said, “This could become a custom. And the best of it is, Fabern would hate it. She said the day of her wedding to Hastred that she meant to put an end to the wedding shirt tradition.”

Young Shen snorted loudly, and Hadand said, “Even Fabern can’t end a tradition just because she says so.”

“You’d be wrong about what she can or can’t do, if she puts her mind to it,” Indevan responded calmly. “Of course you’ve never been at Convocation.” And to the others, “You know she insisted that her wedding be New Year’s Week.”

“So she’d have more attention at Convocation,” Young Shen guessed.

“Right.” Indevan flicked his long hands open in a gesture that Tdor would come to recognize as Fox’s. “She was as sweet as honey around the jarls, and you should have heard them telling Hastred-Sierlaef that he had the finest future gunvaer in the kingdom, the most beautiful, hoo laloo. My guess is, she’ll sweet-talk the jarls into anything that doesn’t directly inconvenience or interfere with their own interests.”

Young Shen made gagging noises, and Hadand sighed. “Let’s not ruin our wedding day talking about her. Are you ready?”

Nothing more was said about the royal city or its inhabitants as they went down to the great hall, which was beautifully decorated with fresh smelling boughs and beeswax candles. Tdor couldn’t help but think of her own wedding as the two young voices firmly spoke the vows, and their straight figures blurred in her vision. She wished Inda could be with her.

Afterward there was merriment, singing, and dancing, then the couple went up to their new suite, which their runners had spent days arranging for them, without letting them in to see.

After they vanished, Tdor wiped her eyes, then started when she noticed Fox next to her. “At least Inda gets to see his boys married,” he said.

His insight unsettled Tdor again. “Yes. He had great fun last year when Jarend and Rialden married.”

“I take it he’s not bored with riding around the same route every year?”

Tdor found it slightly disconcerting to stare up into a man’s face. It had been that way with Evred. She and Inda stood eye to eye, and Whipstick wasn’t much taller. “He loves it,” she said. “He loves the land, and he especially loves the people. It takes him weeks more because he stops so often, I’m told. If he didn’t get homesick, I expect he’d take even longer.”

Fox uttered a soft laugh and moved on.

The next day, mindful that her visit was drawing to an end, Tdor was able to get Hadand alone. The frenzy of preparing the wedding banquet and hall were over, and life’s shuttle was restored to the regular rhythm of its weave. But there was a new thread, of course. There are always new threads.

“How is married life?” Tdor asked Hadand.

She grinned. “With my great experience so far, it’s . . . like every day. Except I’ve got new rooms, adjacent to his.”

Tdor smiled back. “So you didn’t wait for your wedding night to share a bed after all?”

“We meant to, but when he came back from the royal city last time, well, it sort of happened. We decided we’d regard anything we did before the wedding as practice.”

“A sensible approach.” Tdor hesitated. In her mind, she’d had this conversation a thousand times, but now the words wouldn’t come. Reaching wildly, she said, “And so everyone gets along well—the half brothers and sisters?”

Hadand’s straight brows shot upward. “What you see is what we are, Ma. That’s an odd question.”

“I know. It’s odd because I have something to say that, well, it’s odd. I think it’s good, and least I hope so, but . . .”

Hadand’s smile vanished. She had not gotten to live with her mother more than a few weeks each year when she was small, and had seen nothing of her since her teens, but she did not remember her mother ever acting so . . . nervous.

“Ma, now you’ve got me worried.”

Tdor looked around the hallway, filled with light from the tall windows down one side, and said, “Let’s go outside.”

They walked in silence, Hadand gradually feeling more sick. Surely she would know if something terrible had happened to Da . . .

When they reached the grassy area beyond the kitchen garden, Hadand said, “Far enough. No one is around. Da is all right, isn’t he?”

“Yes! I’m so sorry. He went to get your brother, just as I said—Hah-Arrow, I’m sorry I began badly. It’s just that, well, Inda has another child. Probably a girl, if Signi’s prediction proved true.”

“Signi,” Hadand repeated, wondering. “But wasn’t she long ago? His single favorite besides you? Aunt Shen told us she’s really famous in magic circles.”

“Yes. That’s the one. She did something we usually don’t do: she got pregnant without telling your da. She asked _me_ first, instead.”

Hadand’s upper lip wrinkled. That was more than just bad manners. It was bad morals. Babies didn’t happen by accident. A woman had to drink or chew the gerda leaf in order to get pregnant. So doing that and not telling someone seemed to her a deliberate betrayal.

She turned suddenly to Tdor, who had been watching the changes in her expression. “But she came to you.”

“Yes. And I agreed.”

“Why?”

Tdor stared out over the hills, where a line of birds drifted on the summer air. “I’m not certain I can answer that. Partly because I believe that the more children of your father’s in the world, the better for the world. He’s such a good person. And so are you and your brothers. Signi was also a good person. She had a rough life—I think things happened to her that, well, bad things. She and your father both. She loved your father every bit as much as I did, but his love for her was a . . . a need thing, at a bad time in his life. If she had stayed, I believe she would have discussed having a child with Inda, and you know as well as I do that he would have said yes. But when his need for her began to go away, she saw it, and in spite of her own love, made it easier for him and returned to the north, to help repair the war damage. I know it was not easy for her—if I’d had to make that choice . . . it would have been better to put a knife right here.” She touched her heart. “The pain would be the same, the knife at least quicker.”

Hadand made a warding gesture, hating to hear her mother talk like that. “So you said yes, but Signi still didn’t tell Da. Why not?”

“Arrow, I waited this long to tell you because I hope you can see us, your da and I, through adult eyes. Not just see our weaknesses, but to understand them. You know your da. What do you think he would do if he discovered that he had a child up in the Land of the Venn?”

“He’d have to go see her,” Hadand said, then added, “if they didn't kill him outright, he'd want to bring her home.” One of her strongest memories was the grief in his face whenever she left for Darchelde, and she’d see flashes of the same expression in her da’s face when her brothers talked about going back to the academy. “He’s happiest when we’re all together,” she stated. “He would get that way he gets, if anything reminded him of one of us so far away, someone he could never see.”

“That’s exactly right. Your da lost his ability to . . . to take certain kinds of little things, family things, easily. The way the rest of us do. And this isn’t a little thing.”

Hadand considered that, then said, “So what am I to do? Try to write to her? I don’t even know how to do that.”

“No—not unless you want to, of course. That’s your decision. I felt that you should know. I just ask that your Da not find out.”

“One of us a _Venn_.” Hadand sighed. “I don’t even know what I’d say to a Venn, even one related to me. No, I don’t want to write to her. But if you do find out anything, I'd like to hear about it,” she added quickly.

Tdor smiled, relieved it had gone as well as it had. “I’m not likely to know any more than you do, but if it happens, yes. I’ll share.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knives without hilts.

‘ 63 was infamous in Iasca Leror for the long, weary winter that ended with the Great Frost, and for the deaths of a number of notable and well-loved persons.

For the people of Choreid Elgaer, the deaths began not long after New Year’s Week, when Fareas-Iofre, though bundled up well by her loving family, slipped away into her dreams during the first deep freeze. The once-strong woman had become so fragile, and though she loved seeing her family each day, it was clear she did not enjoy dragging her body through the chilly castle halls. Her face, in death, had smoothed nearly to youth; in preparing her for the memorial and Disappearance, Tdor had looked down at her own hands, and discovered that they had aged without her noticing.

Inda wept, then threw himself into castle work as that dripping, freezing winter never seemed to end. As soon as there were uncertain signs of spring, craving green and the feel of the returning sun on his face. he declared that it was time to ride. His mother had told him not long before her death, in a long, rambling reminiscence, that she’d once had a vision of his brother Tanrid riding the borders in spirit through spring and summer on beloved horses, accompanied by the soul-forms of all his favorite dogs, all forever young. “I never told Tdor,” the Iofre whispered. “In case it was a true vision. Because you know how firmly she sets her mind against the existence of ghosts.”

Inda did believe in ghosts—most of the time. His memory was spotty, and he knew he couldn’t trust that his mind hadn’t rearranged what he did remember, but he believed that loyal, duty-minded Tanrid would watch over Choreid Elgaer if he could, and surely if he saw his brother riding by, he’d manifest. Inda pointed at tiny tufts of green in the puddled sludge of melt-off, insisted to his skeptical family and riders that spring had finally arrived, and promised himself he’d catch his brother’s ghost if _he_ could. And so he left Tenthen to Jarend to run, as Whipstick had gone to the memorial for old Horsepiss, who had died earlier that week. Inda rode out with all the young riders in training.

But winter had had that one last, merciless blast in store, freezing to ice all that accumulated water. Cold had never been good for Inda’s body, and it was especially painful now, forcing him to give up his pretense of being perfectly fine.

The young medic gave him what he asked, and he lay back, able to breathe again. How warm it was! How light! Summer had finally arrived, and here he was, surrounded by all the young faces he loved . . . and yes, was that Tanrid there, grinning at him? It was! With the sun shining so warm and bright right through him . . .

Nearly senseless with grief, Inda’s riders brought his body back laid tenderly in a cart with half their bedrolls beneath him. They could not bear to throw him over the back of a horse, though he was beyond feeling.

They also brought back the healer-in-training, who rode out in place of his elderly and infirm master. He arrived bruised and battered, having ridden strictly isolated—and Tdor saw in venomous glances shot his way that many would snuff his life if they were given permission by so much as a flicker of an eye.

Tdor leaned against a wall, struggling for breath past the invisible stone that had lodged inside her chest. Black spots floated before her eyes, but she dug her nails into the wall, and the pain forced the giddiness to subside. Rage, sudden as a summer fire, nearly consumed her, and for a suspended moment she fought the impulse to take a knife to his throat herself.

He slipped off his horse and knelt before her, hands on his knees, head bent. She glared down at the vulnerable neck, a vein ticking in it, then her gaze was distracted by the tears falling with a quiet hiss into the snow before his knees.

This was not the affect of a murderer.

That meant there was question here, needing immediate resolve. She was Iofre, not merely Tdor: she owed them all, she owed _Inda_ , justice.

She forced the words out of a dry throat, “What happened.”

“He begged me for it,” the young man, really no older than a boy, spoke, his voice breaking as he wept. “The storm hit, and we set up the tents, but there was no real shelter, and you know how he is in the cold, though he won’t ever admit it. But then he sent for me and said he couldn’t rise because his bones hurt too much. He wanted me to give him the stuff that’s stronger than listerblossom, and so I said all I got is green kinthus in case someone breaks a bone, and he said, that’s the stuff. Give me that, and don’t mind if I start yapping. That stuff can make you yap out a year’s worth of gabble. So I gave him a hero’s dose, because he _asked for it_.”

The castle healer, who had been listening in silence, stepped up, and turned to Tdor, his eyes wide. “Green kinthus should not have such an effect, even in what my assistant calls a hero’s dose. Has . . . had Inda-Adaluin taken any kind of kinthus before?”

“You know how little he talked about the past,” Tdor said helplessly. “But there were some hints, the same sort of thing he said to your assistant, there.” 

“I wished for decades he'd be more forthcoming about what happened to him during those years he was missing. The white is dangerous. Which is why I don’t even grind it. Even the more benign green can have a cumulative effect—a strong dose to someone who has experienced the white can loosen the tied between body and spirit beyond recovery.”

Then the healer turned to the boy. “You could not have known. _I_ did not know.”

“He was so _happy_ ,” the young medic sobbed.

At that the circle of angry, grieving riders looked shiftily, and reluctantly, but scrupulously, opened their hands in agreement.

“We were all there,” Beech, Whipstick’s younger boy, said. “We crowded into the tent to try to warm it up, on account of, we hadn’t brought any firesticks. We never do—it’s usually coming on summer before we get too far, and then they have to be lugged all the way back.”

“You said he was happy.” Tdor managed to speak past the knot forming in her throat.

“That he was,” Beech stated slowly. “He lay there, looking up at us and smiling. I think he tried to say something. His lips were moving, but we couldn’t understand. It might have been in the pirate language, or one of those others he knows. But he was still smiling when he . . .” Beech turned away, knuckling his watering eyes.

Tdor wanted to run away and smash things, to scream and shout. For Inda to be taken away so suddenly—there was so much still to do. So much to say. There would always be so much to say. But he no longer heard.

She gritted her teeth, clawed in a ragged breath, and braced to duty. “There is clearly no blame here. And every one of you know how Inda would hate any bad blood among you. Instead we accept that a mistake happened, good will all around. And we will give him the best memorial. The _best.”_

Hands struck chests, and they turned to their work, leaving Tdor to leap up into the cart and drop to her knees by Inda's side. But when she touched the dear face she loved beyond worlds, it was cold and stiff: _Inda_ was gone. He had left her this shell, with arms that would no longer hold her. Eyes that could not smile at her. If she buried her face in his neck, there would be no warmth, no clean Inda smell.

She gently touched his chest over the loving heart that had ceased its labors, and backed away.

Later, she could not bear to remember the memorial.

Images would rise, despite her, flickering like fireflies: the voices, hoarse with grief as they sang the Hymn to the Fallen. When everyone closed around the small pile of his personal belongings to choose something, that pile was so pitiful, so final, that rage erupted in her.

She sprang forward, pulling her knives, howling _Why couldn’t I go first?_

But Jarend and Rialden caught her arms, hard. “It would have killed him,” Jarend said steadily, his voice raw with grief. “The best gift you could give Da at the end was to let him go first.”

Tdor shook herself free, and because she couldn’t plunge steel into her own heart right before the eyes of her children she threw down one knife, yanked her braids loose, and with two vicious saws, cut them off next to her scalp. Then she flung them onto his clothes—

His clothes. The wedding shirt was missing. She glared around, and Rialden raised her palms. “No. The shirt stays—we made Inda a promise that his grandchildren would wear it.”

“When.” It was not a question, but a demand, as if some of Inda's precious words had been stolen from her.

“After Fareas-Gramma died,” Rialden said softly. “He didn’t want us to tell you because he was afraid it might . . .”

“Hurt.” Tdor dug her fingers into her scalp.

She sobbed and sobbed, couldn’t stop sobbing as Jarend lit the bonfire. And though the hair raised an awful stink, nobody said a word.

After that, the memories were mercifully brief, beginning with Jarend raising his banner as Adaluin for the first time, and ending with Tdor lying sleepless in Fareas-Iofre’s chamber for the first time. _I cannot be Iofre without Inda_ , she thought over and over.

The days immediately after, she remembered as one long night.

Then, as spring finally ripened, there arrived yet another blow: Hadand the fearless, the ageless, had also died suddenly, breaking her neck on a patch of ice as she rode home to Tenthan.

The knife struck afresh.

Tdor began to recognize, and appreciate, the kindness of the others in carrying on the work of Choreid Elgaer around her, but the nights seemed ever longer. She couldn’t sleep, because she’d dream, and Inda would be alive again. . . . and then she’d waken to the cold shock of truth in her empty bed. So then she tried going without sleep, attending to all the tasks she should have done—and then working on new ones.

But too much sleeplessness leads only to nightmare when the body finally demands its due. She forced herself to rise one day. Bathed, dressed, avoided looking at that wretched hair that flew in her face constantly. She marched downstairs and fitted herself back into the routine with desperate vigor: if she got tired enough, maybe she would truly sleep.

Time passed, each day endured without Inda. She began seeing him in the faces around her: Jarend’s eyes, Kendred’s smile. In the grandchildren: the sight of tousled brown hair, a sudden laugh that recalled Inda’s deep chuckle, a footfall that sounded like his. She quashed the memories that flayed so mercilessly.

There came a late spring day when she lay in the Iofre’s chamber, watching the sky gradually blue, and it occurred to her that those flensing knives would _never_ dull. At her side lay the latest of Shendan’s many letters. Shendan had been writing often, letters full of mocking humor as always, interspersed with descriptions of Darchelde’s busy life—vivid word pictures that at first were merely meaningless words, but which now filled Tdor with longing to see her daughter and meet her granddaughter.

This letter ended with a acerbically expressed invitation:

_I imagine you’ve decided to close yourself in a trunk with a few of Inda’s worn out shirts and shoes that might have escaped the bonfire. Very ballad-like of you. But if you ever come out for air, know there are people who would like very much to see you. And meet you, in the case of said granddaughter._

Come out for air, Tdor thought. In a way, she really had closed herself up. Tenthan was too full of Inda. She loved it, she loved her children, she loved the people, but how long could memory make her heart bleed? What good did it do—it would never bring Inda back. What if she went away? Perhaps the knives would dull a little.

Marlovan widows could go back to their birth homes, or if not there, to live with one of their children. Marth-Davan had never been Tdor’s home. She knew that life had become pleasant there under Mouse, and that they would welcome her, but she would always be a visitor.

She looked through the north window, interest stirring in her heart again: she felt an urge to meet the granddaughter she’d never seen, though she and Hadand exchanged regular letters, and of course she knew all about red-haired, adventure-loving Tdan.

It was not two days later that she received a letter with Joret’s familiar handwriting, which disclosed a surprise: Joret’s youngest son was making a world tour. He was going to stop at Darchelde to visit his Dei cousin, Darchelde’s household steward, who had married Marend’s second daughter, and would it be possible for Tdor to come meet Prince Macael?

Darchelde.

Tdor walked slowly through Tenthan. Everywhere she looked crowded with memories. In Darchelde she would see Hadand again, and little Tdan (not so little anymore—what was she, mid-teens?), and Shendan, and perhaps a different scene would relieve her heart a little.

Once she’d made the decision, she moved fast.

To Jarend and Rialden, she said, “I was never Iofre while Inda was Adaluin, except those three months in winter. And it was fine. You know how much I loved Fareas-Iofre. But I believe the two of you should have your chance to reign together.”

They protested, and it was genuine, but Tdor did not hear any desperation in their voices. They were busy, and happy, and excellent managers. It was natural and right.

The only painful moment was with little Mran of the heart-shaped face, a tiny wisp named for her grandmother in Marlo-Vayir, but with eyes so much like Fareas-Iofre’s. Mran, home for her birth month visit, observed, she thought, she read, and Tdor had known since Mran could speak that this child had an inward life was as rich as any life of adventure could ever be.

She took Mran to her room, and pointing to her battered old trunk with the notches along the lid, said, “I want you to have this.”

“Me?” Mran exclaimed, and dropped to her scrawny knees, big brown eyes intent, her thin little body shivering with intensity.

“Yes. Let me explain these notches. All these close together I made when I was a girl. There are a lot of them, because when you’re young, First Time things seem so very important.”

Mran knuckled her chin, clearly in agreement.

“But when you get older, the important things, oh, begin to include other people. So there are fewer notches: when I got married, when my children were born. This one here . . . this one I made when Grandpa had one of his nightmares.”

“I remember those,” Mran whispered.

“I made a promise that he would have more good memories for every nightmare. And I did my best to keep my promise.”

“Oh, yes,” Mran whispered. “Oh yes, I think you did.”

“So do I,” Tdor said, with barely a tremor, and wiped her eyes. “Then these last notches are for you grandchildren’s births, and I’m going to make one more.” Tdor slid her knife from her sleeve. “With you here to see it. This,” she said as she pressed the knife into the wood, and sawed a bit, bringing up the old, familiar sharp singe, “is my farewell to the trunk. Anything else can be made by you, or not, and you can even sand them out. It’s yours to choose.”

“But you’re coming back, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know yet. Whether I come back next month, next year, or not at all, it’s still your trunk.”

Tdor folded the little girl into her arms and rocked her silently for a time, then let go.

Once the decision was made, it was much easier to throw a couple of changes of clothes into a saddlebag, to call her personal runners—who were all part of Castle Tenthen life— to her and say she’d ride faster alone, the way runners did.

She could see that they expected her back, probably within a few days. That was good. She wanted to depart with everyone smiling. So she rode out the gates with no fanfare, and stopped once, with a single lingering, impress-on-the-memory backward glance, because she knew that it would be her last.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vixen brings back spring

The first few days were the hardest.

It was not camping out, it was being alone with no company but her own grief. She resolutely fought back the memories and concentrated firmly on the river terrain, the blossoming trees on the hills, the sound of singing carried on the balmy breezes as people planted crops.

She believed she’d won the battle. By the time she reached Darchelde, she had achieved a measure of peace, though the numbness was a layer of ice below. For the first time in weeks, she was conscious of not having to fight looking back, because she had people and events to look forward to.

They welcomed her, and no one, not even Shendan, commented on how shocking she looked with the wild, unkempt hair that had gone completely gray, and her rail thin body. Shendan didn’t speak at all, but vanished up the stairs for a time.

Once Tdor got past the jolt of seeing how mature her daughter looked, she fought to regain that precious sense of equilibrium. It was so good to see Hadand again! Interesting that she had become Hadand to everyone, instead of Arrow.

Hadand waited until the greetings were over, and she could internally process how shocked she was to see how Ma had aged. And that short hair bristling so nastily above her collar, and hanging in her eyes!

But maybe grief did that to you.

Hadand kept quiet until Tdor had had a chance to bathe and eat, then took her aside. “Only if you can bear to talk about it, I want to hear everything about what happened to Da. You said so little in your letter. I _need_ to know. And then Aunt Hadand! But—Da. He was so strong, I believed he would outlive us all. It was so sudden! Surely somebody didn’t . . . do something?” She clasped her hands, twisting them, her brown eyes worried.

“No. No, _never._ ”

Tdor drew a deep breath. She’d known this conversation was coming, and probably sooner than later. She would have demanded it herself.

As they passed into a room full of light from those long slit windows, she reflected that getting away from Tenthen, where she had shared her life with Inda, had granted her enough distance for her to tell it all, with only a tremor or two in her voice—until she saw the tears slipping silently down her daughter’s face, and her equanimity, so carefully and consciously built, dissolved.

But somehow, crying together made the grief a shade less desolate, and Tdor found she could breathe again without pain.

That was good, because she needed all her wits about her when at last she met the thunderstorm that was her granddaughter.

A long-legged, coltish girl with long fire-bright red braids dashed in. She pinioned Tdor with a scintillant green gaze. “Are you Grandma Tdor? You are! Why are you wearing your hair like that? It looks—it looks uncomfortable.”

“It is,” Tdor said.

“Oh.” There was something so profound in her grandmother's quiet voice, and so grave in her face that for a moment Tdan gazed into the poignancy of age, then it was gone before the vital demands of the moment. “Will you take me to Choreid Elgaer? I want to learn all about Grandpa Inda, and nobody tells me _anything!_ ”

Hadand said in mild reproach, “Tdan, that’s not manners, making demands the moment you see someone. And you know very well we’ve told you everything we can.”

Tdan crossed her arms and flung her head back, sending her heavy braids swinging below her hips. “ _I_ think it’s not manners to be _screaming_ at me the moment I walk in, just because I’m excited to meet the grandma I’ve _never met!”_

Tdor smiled at Tdan. “I’m so glad to meet you, too. But I have to warn you, I’m not certain I’m going back to Choreid Elgaer.”

Tdan’s head tipped. “Why not?”

“Because it hurts too much,” Tdor said softly, and there was that glimpse again.

Tdan’s eyes widened, then filled with the sheen of tears. “Oh. Oh,” she said, in a much lower voice. “Oh, I didn’t think.” She swung her head toward her mother.

Hadand opened her mouth, her expression tense.

Tdor suspected that Hadand was about to remonstrate with her daughter on her behalf, and so she stepped forward and took the girl’s slim hand in hers, and smiled down into Tdan’s expressive face. “How about you show me all the places you love here? And I’ll tell you as much as you want to hear.”

Tdan smiled brilliantly, clasped Grandma Tdor’s hand, and tugged her gently toward the door. “First, we’ll meet Bandy, my favorite of the scout dogs, though I know them all, and Sugar, my mare . . .” Talking rapidly, she towed Tdor down to the stable, where these introductions took place.

Tdan’s voice dropped to tenderness when she addressed the animals. The dogs leaned into her touch, eyes closed, and the mare nuzzled her face as Tdor scratched the animal’s poll then worked her fingers down to that spot at the base of the neck that rarely failed to cause a horse to—as Joret used to say—drop its head and purr like a cat.

Tdor learned a great deal about her granddaughter in those few moments. Then Tdan turned away, braids swinging, and said, “I don’t want to hear about Grandpa dying, or anything awful, when he was old. I want all the stories about when he got to _get away,_ and go _traveling.”_

“You do know that he was sent away. He didn’t go by choice,” Tdor said.

“Oh, that’s what they all say, but he can’t have minded, could he? Especially when they say the old Harskialdna was so terrible and all. Surely he secretly wanted to see other countries—how could he not?”

“Do you want to travel?”

“Yes! And they won’t let me!” Tdan’s slanted brows, so like Fox’s, pulled down over her nose. “Oh, Grandpa Fox has taken me aboard the _Treason._ Twice! And I loved it! That is,” she amended, “I don’t really like being a ship rat, because everybody gets to tell you what to do, and they stick you with the worst chores, and the ocean is more boring even than riding around here, nothing to see but water. What I _love,_ is seeing other lands. I want to see more, but they won’t let me. I’m too young, but Grandpa Inda was _twelve.”_ She sighed. “And I’m _practically_ _sixteen!_ ” She stopped to face Tdor, then said in a coaxing voice, “Will you talk some sense into them?”

Tdor laughed. So that was at the base of all this supposed interest in the grandfather Tdan had never met? Well, she’d been young once. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though,” she amended. “I’m just a visitor here, remember. I don’t give any orders.”

“But you’re Grandma Tdor. Everyone thinks you’re next thing to the _great_ gunvaer, Ma's Aunt Hadand,” she said confidently.

Tdor had to laugh at that, if somewhat painfully, but all she said was, “In any case, Macael-Laef, or I guess as they say over the mountain, Prince Macael, is coming, and I expect they’ll want you to show him around.”

“He’s Steward Keth’s and my auntie's kin,” Tdan grumped. “You’d think they should be the ones to show him around. And I’ll wager anything that he rides like a sack of meal, if he even knows one end of a horse from another.”

* * *

Joret had not forgotten her Marlovan customs. When Prince Macael’s entourage reached the border to Darchelde, of course the Guard patrol was waiting for them. But the banner bearer nodded at his young attendant, who rode forward and bowed over her horse’s ribbon-braided mane then handed off a letter written in the new king’s own hand, granting permission for a diplomatic tour, and a visit to relations in Darchelde.

The patrollers looked over the entourage, which included as many women as men. They were all armed, but in Marlovan minds, women equated defense, so in no way—especially with that letter—could this be considered an invading force.

The captain lifted his hand and the red eagle banner dipped, granting passage.

Darchelde was looking its best as spring, so long denied, seemed to blossom in frenzied glory as if to make up for its late appearance. The Darchelde patrol sent runners to report that the visitors had arrived, and ought to reach the castle by late the next day.

Marend and Shendan sighed and looked at each other. Fox had been gone more than ever of late—he’d been away all summer. It was harvest time now, well after the Victory Day celebration.

“He promised Marend-Jarlan that he wouldn’t disappear before Indevan was grown, but he’s been grown a long time now,” Hadand confided to Tdor as they walked the walls of the castle, looking out over the rolling hills. In the distance, carried on a warm breeze, harvesting songs rose and fell. “Though he refuses to say, Indevan would like to come home for good, I think.”

“Why doesn’t he?”

“Another promise, made to Hastred,” Hadand said. “He relies on Indevan to help him get around Fabern.” Hadand’s mouth tightened regret. “Tdan has been jobbing at the reins since she was five. I’d looked forward to sending her to the Queen’s Training. Discipline is what she needs—and not always from her grandmother and me and Aunt Shen. But Fabern did away with the Queen’s Training.”

“What?” Tdor exclaimed, cold shock flashing through her veins. “Why? We need it!”

“Because Liet is too popular,” Hadand said with rare bitterness. “Everyone knows it, no matter what foolery Fabern talks about it being outdated, useless, we’re at peace, the odni is no longer a surprise, hoola loo. The girls loved Liet, who ran the Queen’s Training perfectly, exactly the way you left it. I’m told they love her as much as the older people loved you. And they _all_ despise Fabern. So Fabern ended it.”

Tdor gripped her elbows, stunned and sickened. “But . . . it’s important. How else can we see to it everyone gets the proper training? How will future jarlans and randviars meet each other? Exchange kingdom news if they don’t know one from the other?”

“Fabern,” Hadand stated, “said that news is what _she_ thinks important.” And in a brisker voice, “Of course she’s trying to control gossip about how awful she is, but that won’t stop it. News might slow up, but gossip never does.”

“Very true,” Tdor said, and they changed the subject, but later on, as they waited for the visitors to arrive, she poked at her own mind, trying to discern why she felt so unsettled.

Horse hooves were heard in the yard. The impulse to go out to the main doors to greet the visitors had to be suppressed. She was no longer an Iofre. That thought led to the next: everything she had worked so hard to refine in the Queen’s Training was being tossed away on mere whim. The Iasca Leror she knew was changing, as relentless as time. And not for the better.

She tried to scold herself out of this mood, with so little success it was a relief when the clamor of horse hooves gave way to genial voices raised in welcome. The visitors had arrived. Tdor went to stand with the secondary household members.

The prince was in his early twenties. He and his entourage wore clothes that at first glance seemed outlandish, in gaudy shades. Their tunics were cut close to their bodies, with wide sashes at their waists. These tunics were quite short, top of the thigh, with tight trousers beneath, and high boots with folded down tops. Those colorful, close fitting clothes looked good—the prince was tall, slim, and well made—but to Tdor that style seemed like something pleasure house people might wear. It was odd to think that she was seeing fashion at last. Maybe the mystery called fashion was really just another way of saying _I have sex to sell._

(When she told this to Shendan later, Shendan hooted with laughter, slapped her thigh, then said, _Everybody over the age of sixteen dresses to say I have sex to sell. Don’t turn into an old stick-in-the-mud, just because that boy is wearing yellow britches._

 _I’m not_ , Tdor protested. _It’s just that . . ._

 _It’s just that you thought those fashion-people over the mountain sprout peonies at every step, and never fart. You know better!_ )

The prince moved easily, giving a short bow so that his loose, glossy black hair swung forward. He had inherited Joret’s beautiful brown complexion with the dusky rose hinted beneath it, emphasizing fine cheekbones and jawline. But instead of her cool, summer sky blue gaze, two merry, wide-set brown eyes crinkled above a wide grin. “Cousins!” he exclaimed in very accented Iascan—which language has the same roots as his native Adrani. Then, with a comical widening of his eyes, “Ah, which . . .”

Marend had muttered under her breath to Shendan, “You did write to him, didn’t you?”

“I did. He knows,” Shendan whispered back.

Tdor, standing behind them, heard that, and figured they had to be talking about Fox. Only didn’t letters take months to send—on land? How could you send a letter to a ship at sea without it taking years to reach . . . oh yes. She’d forgotten those magical golden notecases. Just because Evred had burned them all didn’t mean that Fox might not have gotten some on his travels.

“ . . . and here is Hadand’s daughter Tdan,” Marend finished the litany of introductions.

Green eyes met brown.

Later on, Tdor was not certain if it was true memory, or the emotional coloration one can get after the accumulated weight of time, songs, and stories—for example, if she didn’t concentrate, her memory of hers and Inda’s childhoods were of endless summer, though she still had the faint scars on her nose and chin from when Branid had once scrubbed her face so hard with a snowball that she’d gotten ice burns—but it seemed that the moment Tdan and Macael saw one another the attraction, the bond, was instant and forever.

Tdan offered at once to teach him Marlovan because she wanted to hear every bit of his travels. As for Macael, there are few things that intensify an existing charm more than the object of one’s admiration hanging on one’s every word.

By the end of dinner they discovered they had the same sense of humor, and immediately after, she took him down to see the stable. Steward Keth was pretty much forgotten.

The older folk watched them go, Hadand and Marend relieved at the change in their unpredictable girl. Shendan laughed and vanished up to her tower with the silver-haired potter who seemed to be her latest love.

Tdor was thinking of taking a night walk on the walls before bed when a quiet step alerted her. She turned to find Fox coming toward her, looking (unlike everyone else) unchanged from the last time she had seen him.

She started. “Where did you come from?” she blurted—she’d been in a room overlooking the stable for most of the day.

Fox’s lips twitched. He said, “It’s a big castle.” Which was not an actual answer. Then, “I have a great favor to request of you.”

“Me!”

She suspected his resting face was sardonic—that he would look that way even in death—but given those features, he seemed what for him would be considered serious as he said, “Come upstairs, if you will.”

Wondering mightily, she followed him to one of the other towers, and then it was not a mere climb to the next floor, like Shendan’s. Up and up they went, until she guessed that they were in the tallest of the castle’s many towers.

At the top, she looked around the lamp-lit chamber: desk, paper, ink, books, carved trunks.

“Inda used to sit out there with me,” Fox said, pointing to the crenellations.

The backs of Tdor’s knees crawled, for she had never liked heights past a certain point.

“When I could get him in the right mood, he reminisced,” Fox went on. “Did he tell you that?”

“He mentioned once that he liked talking over old times with you. I remember that because it surprised me. He very seldom mentioned the past to any of us. He kept saying he was enjoying the present too much, or that none of it was worth going through the first time, much less twice.”

“He didn’t always reminisce with me, either,” Fox said as he leaned against his desk, arms crossed. “It depended on his mood. More frequently we discussed the present. The academy, in particular—the best way to run it, what he’d learned as headmaster. That sort of thing.”

Tdor turned up her palm in acceptance, wondering what lay behind this odd conversation, way up in this tower. They could just as easily have talked downstairs.

But then he pushed away from the desk, bent, and lifted something from the top of one of the trunks. It was closely written pages, Tdor saw.

“I’ve been writing Inda’s life,” Fox said.

“You?” Tdor asked. “What—why? Did he know that?”

“He did not,” Fox admitted, his green eyes glittering in the lamplight. “If I’d dropped so much as a hint, you know as well as I that he would have clammed up tight.”

“So why would you do it?”

Fox looked away, through the window. “Because I think what he did was important. Especially at the end. You do realize that all our lives could have taken a different turn when he came back the last time.”

Tdor closed her eyes, chill gripping the back of her neck. She hated remembering that—wondering if Inda was going to come home to execution, because of his stubborn sense of loyalty. And how it would have gutted Evred to carry it through. But he would have.

She said slowly, “If you’re asking what happened between him and Evred at the end, I can’t tell you because I don’t know. He never talked about it. With us.”

“Or with me,” Fox said. “But think beyond that. Inda was that rare thing, a commander never beaten in battle. He could have carried Evred’s war down the strait. He was ordered to.”

“Which was the problem,” she murmured. “But go on.”

“He could have come back and taken the throne. Most of his followers would have gone with him. I think a great many of the jarls would have backed him.”

“Never.” She shook her head. “That never occurred to him, I can promise that. He just wanted to go home.”

“Yes. Leaving behind some singular achievements, let us say. I feel that his life deserves to be written. I think our descendants should have his example before them, don’t you?”

Tdor knuckled her bottom lip, troubled and uneasy. “I know so little of what happened when he was at sea.”

“I know all that. I was there, as I'm sure you remember. What I’d like from you are the simple things, the easy things. Childhood stories. What was life at Tenthen like when he was small?”

Tdor dropped her hand. “Oh! That, I can tell you. I actually like thinking back to those days.” _Though I’m not ready to look back at recent times_. “But won’t that sort of thing be dull? We were very small, and silly. And he certainly didn’t win all his tussles and games.”

“Nevertheless. I’d like to hear them,” Fox said, smiling.

And so, over the following month, as Indevan said his farewell to Hastred and made his way home for the last time (Having received a warning note from his father), and Tdan and Macael ranged all over Darchelde’s hills and woodland, their words tumbling over the other’s, Tdor reminisced in Fox’s tower about Inda.

Halting, at the beginning. And not every day. She was embarrassed the first time her throat caught and she couldn’t hide the tears, but Fox, who could express princely insolence with a mere lift of his brows, showed no reaction. Just wrote away, the quill scratching steadily, as she recovered.

But gradually the stories flowed more naturally. They mostly met in the mornings, the evenings coming to be reserved for Shendan when she wasn’t busy, and Tdan, when she wasn’t with Macael. Tdan discovered what her grandfather had, that Grandma Tdor was a sympathetic listener, who never criticized, or reminded her of manners, or cautioned her that she ought to think of duty.

As the prince’s visit drew toward an end, an understanding seemed to develop between Tdan and Macael; he began to engage the rest of the family in conversation. It was true, with an intent—strongly championed by Tdan—but he was rather like his father in making friends easily. He found them interesting and affable.

Marend, who did not like seeing Tdan so impassioned over a foreigner, gradually relaxed, though she was counting the days till he left for the royal city. Hadand watched and worried that her daughter would be heartbroken when Macael inevitably must leave.

Aunt Shen was trenchantly sarcastic, but that was as usual. She was the only one who saw the plan the two tried to hide—it would be hard to miss when the two strolled beneath her windows, Macael patiently coaching Tdan in Adrani verb forms—but she kept that to herself.

Fox suspected what was going on, but he only discussed it with his son.

Indevan looked troubled. “My daughter clearly wants to go with him. I hope she gets over it, but if she doesn't, I can't lock her up. And it's not illegal for her to marry over the mountain. Da, I don’t want the family to end. She’s the only child we’ve managed to have.”

“So far.” Fox leaned against the carvings of acanthus and holly in the jarl suite, crossed his arms, and said, “That might be due to the fact that your stays here have been rare until now. You’re forgetting that you’ll soon be the jarl. Hadand is still young enough for children, and there’s always magic.”

Indevan struck the words away with the flat of his hand. “The Birth Spell is even more untrustworthy than the conventional method.”

Fox sighed, aware that he had been given the means to see into the past, but it was impossible to see the future. He’d tried. Several times, until he sensed Ramis’s sinister laughter somewhere on the mental plane.

He looked at his son, not without sympathy. “You and I both know that Tdan is more like me than any of you. If you try to tie her down, especially for dynastic reasons, she _will_ run away. Keep trying. And if you get old and it doesn’t work, pick one of the likely youngsters and adopt. Sometimes I wonder if our blood is all that worthy of being passed down. There’s a reason I didn’t name you Savarend, though it’s supposedly a tradition.”

Father and son regarded one another with affection (yes, one could say love) and acceptance. Fox had seen how very much like Marend his son was as he grew: practical, sailing on an even keel, rarely needing touch to sail or helm. Indevan had never needed him, which made the prospect of leaving much easier. As for Indevan, he found little comfort in these apparently careless words from his father, but he wasn’t surprised. His father wouldn’t be who he was—and as successful as he was—without that mordant view of the world.

“Right,” he said, and took his leave.

That night, Fox stayed with the company after dinner. He was wont to remove himself shortly after meals; though he cherished them all, he’d decided that it would be easier for them to accept whatever happened when he sent the drakan through that rift if he was mostly absent even when present. And he did enjoy seeing Darchelde’s life going on peacefully around him.

But he knew that the time had come. He had kept certain other promises. The book was done, or all but done. His son was more than capable of handling the jarlate, and he would remain steady friends with the king. This generation was safe.

Nobody could control the future.

And so he lingered over dinner, and Macael—who found Fox both sinister and fascinating—did his best to engage him in conversation.

He soon discovered it was a mistake to try to get Fox to talk about his past as a pirate. “Let others yawp on about that,” Fox said. “I was there, and now I’m not.”

Then Macael’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “Would you have stayed, then?”

“I certainly would not have been a pirate,” Fox retorted.

The others held their breath, but his tone remained good-humored.

“So you first went to sea because you can’t leave your border,” Macael said, switching from Marlovan to heavily-accented Iascan when he fumbled for words. “That treaty sounds most unjust. However, I must say, the rest of the jarls, from I understand, are almost as bound, are they not? They truly ride around and around their borders, looking for trouble that never comes, in this good time of peace? Is that not a futile pursuit?” He put his hands together, then opened them outward. “I ask only to be enlightened.”

“It might be futile to some, but to most, it’s their way of governing. The king has a throne up on a dais, so that the jarls can see and hear him. And shoot him, so the joke goes,” Fox said lazily, miming drawing an arrow and loosing it. “But the jarls don’t have thrones, even those with elaborate halls of ancestors. Their people know that the jarl will make the rounds, and they save their problems for that time. Except of course for emergencies, as anywhere.”

Macael’s brows lifted; he was thinking that the jarls thus managed to do without the weight of officialdom, which could have its own problems. But then, how would a jarl ever get free of a large city? Then he remembered that the Marlovans didn’t have large cities, except the one.

They talked about forms of government, and Fox, giving no outward sign, was pleased to find the young man extremely intelligent as well as educated, as a prince must be.

After that, the castle’s young people had to show Macael the sword dance, which turned into lessons in dance on both sides of the mountains, and ballad singing.

Fox waited until Tdor showed signs of wanting to withdraw for the night, and invited her for the last time to his tower fastness, which was lit by a single candle. She only noticed that it was neater than usual; the shadows hid the fact that the trunks were gone, as well as the books. Only a single stack of papers lay on the desk.

Tdor looked down at it. “That is quite a stack,” she said.

“Would you like to read it?”

“No.” Tdor backed away. “I . . .” It struck her how that might sound, and she reddened. “That is nothing against your work, I want you to know—”

“I understand,” he said, smiling. “You would rather preserve your memories as they are. There are other aspects of his life that could only hurt.”

“That’s it,” she said, in relief. “If I could go home to him, I could ask, and we might laugh together, or at least I could hold him close.” Her throat tightened. “Even the good memories, he was always so careful, so conscious of how good they were. As for others, he could change to pensive . . .” She gazed at the candle flame.

“Others, such as the academy?” he asked.

She looked up, eyes round and appealing. The candle light softened her features, making her young. The unfortunate haircut had gotten long enough for her to pull the front behind her ears. Tdor had never been beautiful, but Fox perceived the years of kindness and strength and generosity of spirit in the lineaments of her face. Yes, he could see why Inda had treasured her beyond anyone else.

“The academy,” she repeated. “How did you know? He was so proud of it, and of course our boys loved it. But there were times . . .” She let out a sigh, and then, in a rush, shared a memory that she had determined she would keep to herself.

“There was a time. He was looking into our son’s room. He might have been thinking of his brother, killed so very young. And he said, ‘When trouble does come, it will rise first at the academy. We all thought the Fox banner stood for glory, but what if glory is just another word for damnation?’” Tdor stopped. “Not that I mean any insult—I just remembered that the fox banner is your family’s—”

Fox raised a casual hand. “I know exactly what you mean.” He was thinking, _Inda was remembering his brother_.

Everything Tdor had told him, he’d seen through Ramis’s magic. She never lied or distorted, though she didn’t always know what Inda was really thinking. Fox reassured her, but inside, he wondered why Ramis had given him this powerful magic.

Because now that the book was done, and he was ready to leave, this was the time for Ramis to make a reappearance. But there was no sign, no whisper on that mental plane.

Well, maybe that would happen after he sailed into the rift. Because Fox knew he was going, whatever he might find on the other side.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over the mountains.

Fox slipped away the night before Macael and his party rode for the royal city. He said his farewells, but only Indevan and Tdor knew that he was gone forever. The others all expected him to sail for a few months and then return, as customary. He knew that when those months extended into years, they would accept his absence without any bumps in the roads of their lives.

After Macael departed, Tdan cried wildly for two days. Furious at what she perceived as relief on the part of her parents and her paternal grandmother, she clung closer to Tdor, who sympathized without ever saying anything about settling at home—it was better for him to go—she was young, her mind would change a hundred times over the next few years.

Tdor, remembering her own lifelong, steadfast love for Inda, was the only one who listened to Tdan with sympathy and acceptance.

Tdan pestered Shendan for histories of the kingdoms over the mountains, and lessons in Sartoran. Shendan agreed to teach both Tdan and Tdor, whose Sartoran had become rusty after decades of disuse. This was Tdan’s idea, so that she could have a study partner. Somewhat surprisingly, Shendan readily gave over time from her own work for these lessons. And so grandmother and granddaughter practiced together when riding, or doing other chores.

The seasons slipped by, turning into a year, then two years. Letters crossed and recrossed the kingdom; then there were the letters Tdan received by magic in the golden case Macael gave her, which she kept hidden in her room. Only Tdor was permitted to know about it.

When Tdan’s eighteenth birthday drew near, and a formal letter from the king and queen of Anaeran-Adrani arrived, inviting Tdan to visit, it caused a furor in the family.

Tdor stood by her granddaughter, until one by one the family accustomed themselves to what they suspected: that if Tdan left, she would never come back.

“I’ll go with her,” Tdor offered, when Marend, Hadand, and Indevan held a meeting on a spring day. “I promise, if she’s unhappy, or if there is the least problem, I will let you know. Or get her out of there.”

Hadand accepted wearily. Indevan was more ambivalent, and they all knew he was reluctant for dynastic reasons. Marend sighed, threw up her hands, and thought to herself that if her other children inherited Darchelde, it would be no bad thing.

It was only Shendan who stood against the wall, shoulders tight, arms crossed, a sarcastic twist to her lips that called Fox very much to mind. Tdor saw it, even if no one else did. And though Shendan said nothing, Tdor made a point of going up to Shendan’s fastness—which was more full of books than ever—to find out, if she could, what was amiss in the plan.

“Nothing,” Shendan said, when Tdor asked. “There’s nothing wrong with you chasing over the mountain after a silly girl who should find a perfectly good life here if she wasn’t foolishly encouraged into idiocy. Nothing wrong with the two of you running into brigands or who knows what other kinds of trouble.”

“Shen!” Tdor’s eyes widened. “I thought you were in favor—you’ve been teaching us all this time, and very grateful I am—”

“Oh, shut it,” Shendan snapped. “I never thought that girl would stick to either lessons or this foolish plan. Trust a teenager to stand firm to the _stupidest_ ideas! And you, too!”

“So I'm now doddering because I’ve passed seventy?”

“No,” Shendan said, raising her hands, palms out as she backed away, then turned so sharply her robe flared out then fell against her legs.

Tdor perceived in Shendan's averted profile the worry she tried to hide beneath the sarcasm, and tried to figure out how to word a question without sounding interfering or insulting to her prickly old friend, when Shendan turned again.

“No, I don’t. Tchah! You and Hadand and everybody else used to be so damn smug about how oblivious Inda was to what was obvious to rest of the world, but you are just as blind, Tdor Marth-Davan. Never mind! Of course Marend will send along a couple ridings and you’ll be fine, fine, _fine.”_ She whirled to her desk and began rooting among the books, scrolls, and papers. “I should make you a list of magic texts to be on the watch for.”

Tdor watched her, feeling somewhat helpless. Shendan had always been volatile, but she seemed more-so right now than even when they were teens. Shendan seemed intent on her search, so after studying the neat parting at the top of Shendan’s head—heyo, was that silver hair? Why not? Tdor was completely gray! Somehow she’d thought Shendan would never age. She was so very like a force of nature.

Tdor retreated downstairs. When Hadand, after a concerned look at her mother, asked if anything was wrong, Tdor said, “I’m thinking about what to pack. Pay me no mind, dear one.”

* * *

And so, as soon as the passes cleared, Tdor and Tdan set out with a respectable cavalcade made up mostly of women, for Darchelde men were not permitted by treaty to ride in any number over two. So they had two men, mainly for show. These were women trained by Fox himself, experts not only in the Fox knife forms but in double-stick, so no one expected any trouble.

And there wasn’t any; the occasional scouts for brigands took a long look at those tough women carrying weapons like they’d been born with them, and decided to do something else with their day.

Tdan and her grandmother were both thrilled to descend down the mountains, past enormous lacy waterfalls, into a new kingdom, where for the first time, they had to ride in a carriage.

Not that the terrain was all that much different once they descended from the mountains toward a vast plain bisected by a broad, majestic river. But the settlements certainly were different. They didn’t see any round Iascan houses; the ones they did see, mostly stone, had doors on the west as well as north, east, and south. Painted shutters that swung outward, and were not removed entirely for the summer, because there was _clear glass_ in the windows. Flower boxes everywhere. Flowers even alongside the roads.

The biggest surprise was the terraced royal city. Joret had described it in letters, Tdor remembered—but as she’d had little context for those long descriptions, she’d skimmed them.

Now she understood what had caused Joret to marvel: brick walkways marked off by vine-covered archways that served no military purpose, waterfalls artfully controlled, gardens everywhere. And glass in windows—not just the cloudy glass that many Iascan castles had instead of winter-stuffing, but glass worked into diamond patterns and even colors.

This was a city that had never known war.

The palace lay at the top tier. King Valdon and Queen Joret came out to welcome them themselves, their youngest son between them.

At the sight of Tdan’s anxious face peering out of the carriage, Macael broke into a broad smile, answering her question before anyone spoke.

Despite the differences between them in personality, Tdor had sensed that emotionally Tdan was more like her than anyone believed. They all had scoffed good-naturedly about how teen passions resembled thunderstorms, intense then gone. But Tdan had not done much except experimental flirting, and that was mostly curiosity. Everything had changed when she met Macael. Her steadfastness convinced Tdor that Tdan was like her in falling in love once and forever. In her situation, she had loved Inda even before they reached an age to understand what love was, and she had continued to love him during the long years he was gone.

Within a couple of days of the visit, it was clear that Macael felt the same way about Tdan. He was like his father in cleaving to a single person.

Tdor consented to try new clothes, though at first she objected, saying to Joret, “I don’t care what I look like, but surely it won’t be any easier on your eyes, having to see me in these bright colors, with these two braids sticking out like a six year old girl.”

Joret did not ask why Tdor’s long braids had vanished; she suspected she knew. Before she answered, she pulled the beautiful moonstone headdress loose from her crown of hair, which fell heavily down . . . no farther than her shoulder blades. Tdor stared, remembering Joret’s waterfall of blue-black hair hanging down to her knees.

“No one can tell what length it is if you wear it up. And it stays out of your way,” Joret said. “It was such a relief when I cut mine. Let me send my hairdresser to you. I promise, she’ll find something both comfortable, easy, and perfectly acceptable even for a Marlovan.” She flashed a smile. “She can also do color spells, if you want it brown again. Mine has been coming in an ugly shade of gray, but I color it because Valdon likes it, and he’s the one who has to look at me most.”

Tdor marveled at the idea of a person who only cared for hair. Then she had a sudden thought: what if she wanted green hair? Or violet? But when the woman came, she ended up staying with the gray that she was now used to, and learned how to wrap it up in the pretty silk ties Adrani women wore. It was both comfortable, and never sticky in warm weather or tickling her neck.

Change again, she thought as she surveyed herself in a long mirror, wearing a pale peach-colored gown not unlike a closed robe, belted at the waist with her favorite green.

Gradually—naturally—Tdor felt her granddaughter letting go of her, and dancing happily into her new life. It was right, but it hurt a little. At least, Tdor told herself, as Joret did her very best to fill Tdor’s days with interesting activities, she and Tdan had had three years together.

Joret, despite her best efforts, saw Tdor looking wistful, even lost, at moments when she was not masking herself in what Joret thought of as the Marlovan Good Guest face.

She brought it up with Valdon one night. “I’m not sure what to do,” she admitted. “I’ve given concerts and parties for her, not to mention the two balls. About the only success I can claim is not my success at all.”

“I've seen it, too. She’s popular with the youngsters,” Valdon said, stretching out beside her on their bed. “She seems to love listening to them. They like her, even if she won’t give them bloodthirsty descriptions of big bad Marlovan battles.”

Joret snorted. Valdon grinned. He loved it when the Marlovan came out in her; courtiers _never_ snorted.

He went on, “My guess is, after she saw her first ball, her interest waned fast. She doesn’t really know what to do at one, except watch everybody else. I think her insistence on how fine they are is entirely due to what she perceives as the work that goes into organizing one.”

Joret laid her palms over her eyes. “You’re right. I forget that. I loved balls from the beginning, even before I knew the dances. Hadand didn’t, as I recollect. In that way, Tdor is more like her.” She lowered her hands, and reached for him. “I think I know what to do—but you will be missing us.”

He folded himself around her as he said, “You’re leaving, I take it? Where?”

“I’ll take her to Sartor.”

“To court?” he asked, raising his head to look down at her.

“Only if she wants to make her bow. My guess is, she’ll like the archives much more. The ancient buildings we read about when we were girls. Maybe the Mage Guild. And if Shendan didn’t pester her for more magic books, I’d be very surprised.”

“Another of the mysterious Montredavan-Ans,” Valdon murmured. “Macael, as I recall found her very interesting. So Tdor likes archives and records?”

“She loved them when we were a girl. Her favorite activities were defending the castle with the girls, and our lessons with Fareas-Iofre. Valdon, I want her to stay. There’s nothing more for her to do back in Iasca Leror, whereas I think we could find plenty for her here—she has always liked work, and found purpose and pride in it. I think she could be _happy_ here, where there are no reminders of Inda. Let me take her and see if Sartor works it magic on her.”

Valdon was thinking hard. “Go, then. I’ve been mulling an idea . . .”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you when you get back.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sartor's surprise.

Success at last! Joret was delighted.

They crossed the Sartoran Sea. Tdor was uneasy at first aboard the ship, but within a day or two, the anxiety cleared out of her face, and she walked everywhere, watching the tending of the sails with fascination.

A soft remark once, “So this was what Inda was talking about,” brought home to Joret that Tdor was still grieving. As to be expected in so loving a heart; Joret suppressed a pulse of dread at what must lie ahead for her and Valdon, then firmly dismissed it. Death, she could do nothing about. So why let it steal moments from the good life she had?

“You’re following Inda’s footsteps,” she offered, in case Tdor wanted to talk.

“I know,” Tdor said, looking back down the years. When would it stop hurting? “One of the few things he told us a lot about, his visit to Sartor. He loved the city, all the book shops, though he was only there as a trader, and hadn’t money to spend. But he remembered them, and the windows. I don’t recall what he said about them, but I must look at the windows.” 

Their entourage took them to the royal city, named Eidervaen, and to a huge house in the center of a row of equally huge houses, the Adrani embassy.

The ambassador was a woman their own age, quite handsome. Tdor found her intimidating in her cool politeness, and the tiny quirk of slightly condescending amusement at what Tdor was well aware by now was her very old-fashioned-sounding Sartoran.

But the ambassador deferred gracefully to Joret, always addressing her by title. Joret was scrupulously polite in return, but Tdor felt a strong sense of release when Joret suggested the two of them go out and tour the city. And here, on their street, Tdor began to see what Inda had been talking about, but he hadn’t had the terminology.

In Marlovan Iasca, the older Iascan castle windows had modest segmented arches widened from arrow slits. The few added wings built by Marlovans were windowed with simple rectangles, hewn stones laid on the frame. Nothing decorative in the least.

But here, inside and outside the ancient, mossy city wall (that was completely indefensible, Tdor couldn’t help noticing), the mostly five-story buildings featured all kinds of arched windows, lancet, ogee and inflexed, reverse ogee, and her favorite of all, the trefoil cusps, with beautiful stonework or carvings above. Joret explained them all, indicating which century the buildings had been built in—and their sometimes colorful, even boisterous history.

“This is how Valdon told me,” Joret said, in Marlovan. “How is it that one can remember things much better if they’re funny?”

Tdor, in hearing a highly entertaining and irreverent history of the kings, queens, and changes in fashion, began to see that Sartor’s history was made up of people doing typical people things, rather than (as she’d assumed, those long-ago days while struggling to translate Ancient Sartoran texts) a series of stern-browed founts of wisdom and powerful magic.

She tried to memorize the street names—they had names!—but they all sounded alike, and as the streets seemed to be mostly made up of curves and twists, being built around a central circle, Tdor finally realized she could orient herself by the tall white tower that could be seen anywhere in the city. For it was against the law, Joret said, to build anything higher.

At the end of their long walk, Tdor gained a sense of Eidervaen's evolution from a small walled city, one of four the ancient Sartorans once regarded as their capitals, one for each season. Eidervaen's center was not the enormous, rambling royal palace, but that single tower made out of mysteriously glistening white stone. She was also secretly entertained to see that Joret still got double-takes from passers-by. She was still a stunner, though as always, she completely ignored such looks—if she even saw them.

The next morning early, out of long habit, she and Joret got up and went to a tiny courtyard to do their odni drills. The ambassador was not yet up when they dressed and departed, this time to take a look inside the most famous buildings.

“I didn’t tell you this,” Tdor said as they crossed the patterned tiles behind the white tower, toward a building made of light stone, with wonderful carvings of corbels and cornices, “as I didn’t tell anyone except my daughter. But Signi—you remember who she was?”

“I met her once,” Joret said. “It was here in Eidervaen, on my first visit, as it happens.” She’d greatly respected the small Venn mage, though she'd never understood what could attract Inda to her. But that opinion she kept to herself.

“That’s right, Signi is famed here,” Tdor said. “For giving the world the Venn navigation. How odd that is, that she would be known entirely for one thing in one land, and for something else entirely in another. And in either case, people had no interest in the other thing, for the rest of the world has traveling mages to renew things and we'd gone without for so long. Also, I imagine nobody knew here that she was Inda’s lover.”

“True,” Joret said. They hadn’t—and she hadn’t told anyone.

“Anyway, she was pregnant by Inda when she left.”

Joret gasped, stopped, and faced Tdor, blue eyes wide. “And he never went to get his child?”

“Because he never knew.”

Which shocked Joret. Tdor sketched the main points of that history, then fell silent when they entered the mage guild, to be confronted by a mage student who asked if they could be helped.

They got a tour from a well-rehearsed young person. Tdor marveled at the rooms of old records she glimpsed, and kept imagining Shendan at her side. How much she would love this place! Tdor treasured up bits she knew Shen would enjoy, to be written as soon as possible.

Mindful of her promise to Shendan, at the end of the tour, she slipped her hand into the pocket in her robe where she kept her list as she said, “Where can I buy magic books?”

The young mage said, “With whom did you study?”

“I don’t know any magic,” Tdor asked. “This is for a friend.”

The young person's expression didn’t change, nor did his voice. “The friend will have to write to us, or their tutor. The scribe desk receives letters from mage students the world over.” Smoothly Tdor and Joret were conducted through an archway, which would give them access to the scribes, who (Tor was assured) would be glad to send or receive letters for her.

It was adroitly done, but Tdor took the message: magic books were strictly for mages.

The scribe tour was more interesting, for at last Tdor learned something more about golden notecases, and how scribes in every country served to relay letters for people.

Which gave her an idea.

A queen could not enter Sartor, it turned out, and remain anonymous any more than in Iasca Leror. Joret warned Tdor that custom decreed that royal arrivals be granted two days to recover from their journeys, but by the third day she must to go to court with the ambassador to make her bow, and as Tdor had once been the equivalent of a princess, did she want to go, too? Joret was too compassionate to point out that the Sartorans would be intensely interested to meet the wife of the famous (infamous) Elgar the Fox. But she had become Adrani enough to make a pass, at least, at protocol. “The throne is like a big tree,” she said. “It’s quite beautiful. There’s magic worked into it, so that wherever you stand in the great circle, you can see the monarch. And the floating stars above, it’s all lovely.”

“Perhaps,” Tdor said. She’d already seen tapestries and paintings of said throne in the Adrani capital, and she didn’t want to spend any time with that cold-faced, ultra-polite ambassador that she didn’t have to, especially in situations where everyone knew the no-doubt complicated etiquette and protocols, except for her.

She was evolving another idea. The next day, as Joret donned a fabulous gown in blue and silver, Tdor pleaded a slight headache. “Maybe another time,” she said.

Joret could see in Tdor’s averted gaze that that time wouldn’t come, but she’d pretty much guessed from Tdor’s lack of excitement at the prospect of being introduced to Sartor’s elite that something of the sort was coming.

After Joret departed with her attendants on their duty court visit, Tdor rose, told one of the many servants that she was going to try to walk the headache off, and after getting helpful directions to local famous sights, she set out.

Tdor oriented on the white tower, and made her way toward the mage guild, which debouched onto the archives and scribe headquarters, she remembered. Only which was which?

She chose a promising door and entered. It gave onto a huge room with books stacked on shelves at least two stories on either side, with curved stairs and rails worked into the walls for access.

Down the length of the building desks had been placed, with people sitting at them, or coming and going with armloads of books. As she swept the room, her eye caught on a long tail of dark red hair.

She snapped her gaze back in total disbelief, and stared at the tall man whose warrior’s posture wasn’t quite hidden by a modest scribe’s robe. His long dark red hair wasn’t worn in a horsetail, but in the queue of scribes.

It couldn’t be, it had to be a man who looked just like Evred Montrei-Vayir—

He had never entirely relaxed his vigilance. Aware of someone very still at the periphery of his vision, he glanced up, and . . . could that tall, thin, gray-haired woman possibly be Tdor Marth-Davan?

The rules were quite strict. Evred smothered an exclamation before it could get past his lips, and suppressed the still-persisting impulse to send a runner with no more than a glance. Instead, he set his books down on the desk he had leased for the day, and crossed the room.

“Tdor? It is you?” he asked softly.

“Evred-Harval—ah . . .” Tdor blushed like a girl.

“I’m just Evred these days. Come,” Evred murmured in their home tongue. “There’s a little court right out there, where we may speak and not disturb anyone. See the trees through that door? These Sartorans seem to put trees everywhere they can. I’m told that in Colend, it’s flowers.”

This soft-voiced talk carried them through tall double doors carved with birds amid highly stylized vines, and into a courtyard overlooked on all sides by windows. The sunburst mosaic on the ground looked like it had been worn smooth by centuries of scribes’ feet. All around aromatic cedar reached upward toward the sun.

He indicated a carved bench as she said, “I’m here with Joret Dei.”

“Ah. I ought to have guessed that,” Evred said as they sat down.

She tried not to stare at that silvery gray scribe robe, as she said, “How?”

“Because Taumad is at court to receive some visiting queen. If you’re here, surely that queen must be Joret.”

“Tau is here? Tau knows Sartor’s court people?” Tdor asked, then laughed. “Of course he does. Tau somehow manages to know everybody, Inda told me once.”

Evred smiled briefly. She stared at him. He was still handsome, with silver at his temples, weaving streaks into that long tail of hair. What surprised her was how young he looked. No, he had lines at the corners of his eyes, and at either side of his austere mouth, and the skin over the clean, hard angle of his jaw had blurred. It was his clear brow. The tension she’d thought so much a part of him was gone.

But the grief wasn’t. She sensed it in the softness of his voice as he asked, “How long have you been away from home?” _Home_. That word, so . . . difficult to define, and to get away from.

“I’m not certain how to answer that,” she said, and ventured into honesty, “Home ceased to be home when Inda died.”

“I trust you personally gutted the idiot who killed him.” _There_ was a flash of the old Evred.

Her heart thumped against her ribs in alarm, though they sat together in this peaceful garden far from Iasca Leror and its powerful King’s Guard whom he could summon at a word. She breathed in, let it out, then said, “I almost did. But it was truly accidental. If there is fault, it’s Inda’s, in not telling us how many times, or how much, he was dosed with white kinthus. I didn’t even know what that stuff was.”

It was Evred’s turn to expel his breath as his gaze dropped. “Yes,” he said huskily. “Taumad said something to the same effect, about Inda forced to drink it while he was a prisoner in Ymar. He was told by Savarend Montredavan-An. Not by Inda.”

“Fox? You saw Fox?”

“A couple years back, we sailed on his ship,” Evred said, the twist to his lips and the lift of his brows oddly calling Fox to mind. But then, she remembered, Evred and Fox were related somewhere in their complicated family trees. As was Tau himself.

“We,” Tdor repeated. “So you’ve been with Tau for two years?”

“Yes. He brought me here, and got me an introduction to the chief scribe.”

“So they don’t know who you are,” Tdor marveled.

The corners of Evred’s mouth deepened and now he very much called Fox to mind. But only for a moment. “As far as they are concerned, I’m a scribe,” he said. “My scholarship, after a rather searching test, turns out to be deemed sadly out of date, but competent enough in Ancient Sartoran to afford me access to certain archives. I’ve been endeavoring to discover the history of the Ala Larkadhe white tower.”

He tipped his head toward the vast chamber behind them. “For a pittance a day you can have a desk to yourself until the last bells. If you can’t afford the pittance, you can grind ink, or cut paper early each morning, then get your desk for the rest of the day. The lease money goes to buy that ink and paper. A very benevolent system, I find, especially for those of us who own little more than the clothes we stand up in.”

She suppressed the curl of hilarity at the idea of the king of a powerful nation—Joret said that many thought the Marlovans now the most powerful in the world, with the Venn having withdrawn to their borders—possessing nothing more than his clothes.

But it wasn’t funny on second thought. He had done that rare thing, given up power and handed it off to his son. It was, in its way, a little like Inda gladly giving up being a harskialdna.

But Evred had always been as private as he was subtle and quick to react. She suspected he would hate any commentary on either of these things, so she only said, “I know. I would have forgotten all about coinage when I crossed the mountain. But Marend reminded me. I’ve had to learn all about how trade is done outside Iasca Leror.”

“Marend?” he asked. “In Darchelde, I take it?”

Tdor gave a brief explanation, finishing up with Tdan’s and her crossing the mountains, and their welcome by the Shagals. As she spoke, she wasn’t certain whether or not to bring up Inda again.

But Evred did that himself. “Tell me about his last days, will you? You know he never wrote letters beyond a single sentence, only if he had to. And after your younger boy left the academy, he never came to Convocation, though the jarls always hoped he would.”

She sensed that Evred was asking why Inda wouldn’t come, and beneath that, the question Evred could never bear to put into words: was it because of him? She said, “He wouldn’t ever complain, but I think the pain in his joints had worsened a lot by the end. He couldn’t write, those last few years. He couldn’t grip a sword anymore, and switched to his left for drill. I don’t think he was capable of the ride to the royal city. His trips around the border got longer and longer.”

As she spoke, she realized it was true—she just hadn’t seen it. She couldn’t bear to see it, and so Inda had hidden his pain when he repaired that wedding shirt. She swallowed in an aching throat and forced her voice to evenness. “Of course he loved talking to people. Never tired of that—and they would keep him for extra time. But his rides were shorter and shorter in any given day. In summary, though his joint pain had become very bad, he himself was happy. He found happiness in the smallest things.”

“I have always respected you for how much you contributed to that happiness,” Evred said, barely above a whisper.

Her eyes stung. “It wasn’t just me. It was our children, and their children, and Whipstick and Noren, so loyal and true. Inda loved them all, and they loved him back.”

“It was the same at the academy.” Evred's gaze shifted away, and it struck Tdor that this person here was the one beside her who surely grieved the most. And unlike her, he’d had nothing of Inda but memories, some of them troubled.

She sought for words, but almost as if he intuited what she thought—what she might say—he struck his hands on his knees. “Well. If I don’t get to those books I borrowed, someone might come along who’s looking for them. Joret, no doubt, has apprised Taumad that you are here, and he will be arranging some sort of meeting.” Again an implied question.

“I’d like that,” Tdor said. She accepted that Evred kept the worst of his pain inside, as she did. “Where will you go when you finish here? Or are you becoming a scribe?”

He turned his palm flat; he still had beautiful hands. That, too, he shared with Fox. “I haven’t the patience to write and send others’ letters," he said, "and I’d have to earn my living that way as I don’t know nearly enough languages to become an archivist scribe, which would be what I’d like most. I’m too old for that, and my archival pursuits are entirely idle. There’s so much more of the world to see. Colend, I'm told, will be next, come spring. I leave these decisions entirely to Tau.” He smiled. It was pensive, but his gaze warmed. Tdor hid how very glad she was to see it.

Then she remembered her original quest, and that she had interrupted Evred in his project. She rose, and he rose with her.

As they started for the door, she said, “About scribes writing letters, can you point out where I’d go if I wanted a letter written and sent?”

“Certainly,” Evred said with his habitual courtesy, and did. Without pestering her for her errand.

They promised to see one another anon, and she followed his directions.

The scribes were brisk and efficient. They had seen it all—or thought they’d seen it all. Mild interest did ripple around the room when it became clear that the slim gray-haired woman in the plain green riding clothes wanted to send a letter all the way to the Land of the Venn.

* * *

It was easy to send, once she’d handed over two of the six-sided silver coins that Joret had given her. That is, she amended as she walked back in the direction of the embassy, her heart clumping against her ribs, it was easy to send, but she had no idea whose hands it would pass through, assuming it even reached Signi.

She finished out the walk around the Great Chandos Way, which circled the rambling royal palace (completely and totally indefensible), then returned to the embassy.

At first she expected that if there was an answer, it ought to come at once. For didn’t magic mean notes got to people instantly? Her expectation of dealing with an answer within an hour stretched to two hours, and then as the melodious carillon chimed mid-afternoon, she wondered if time was different in the Land of the Venn.

The expectation diminished as time stretched from evening to a day, then two days, and finally a week. It was a delight to meet Tau again. He was as beautiful as ever, his golden hair having gone entirely silver. He remembered her, asked easy questions and listened to the answers as if the entire world could wait, and only her words mattered, which charmed her all over again. 

Taumad and Evred shared a sumptuous chamber in the finest inn, where they entertained Joret and Tdor that evening. Tdor's heart rejoiced when she saw Evred and Tau sitting shoulder to shoulder, the easy, casual touches as one or the other passed dishes or wine. So very, very different from the tense Evred of the worst days while Inda was harskialdna, who kept people at a distance by the force of his will.

She knew that Evred mourned Inda, but he was not, after all, alone. She remembered from her days in the royal city that Tau had understood the complexities of Evred’s heart. It seemed he still did, with his typical generosity. She wished she had the gift of words—she longed to tell Tau had grateful she was that Evred had him in his life, without being awkward—and had no idea how her heart shone in her eyes.

Tau’s voice was tender when he spoke to her. Over a delicious meal and mellow wine, the four of them talked, in Marlovan, about Inda. But Tau managed the conversation so adroitly that it was always the good memories that came up. Laughter, Tdor found, had its own healing quality, especially when one shared it with others who, in their own fashion, had loved the person they all missed.

Before they parted for the night, Tau said, “I’m going to take Evred to a theater I know. They’re offering a play about Jeje. If you’re free, I will exchange the two seats for a box.”

Joret said, “This visit is solely to show Tdor around. Unless it’s a duty call, like the court bow.”

Tau understood then, though of course Tdor didn’t, that Joret had turned down any invitations that might not interest Tdor.

Joret smiled her way. “Would you like to go?”

Tdor thought of the theater Tau had tried to establish in Choreid Dhelerei. She had no idea if it was still there. “Certainly,” she said. “I remember Jeje. She was such a good friend to Inda.” As she spoke, her gaze touched Evred’s, and she caught the briefest tightening of features, so brief she wasn’t certain what emotion he hadn’t quite hidden. But then he was smiling, so all was well.

The theater turned out to be a wonder. At first Tdor was scandalized at what she took to be waste in all the trappings of stage settings, until Joret told her that what she looked upon was much-used painted backdrop, with illusion magic providing all the dazzle.

“Shendan showed me illusion magic. I didn’t know it could actually be useful,” Tdor whispered to Joret as they watched rain fall on the stage, but no actual water pooling. She had to write to Shendan about this!

The Jeje in the play turned out to be completely different from the short, round, trenchant young woman Tdor had met so briefly. This Jeje—tall, curvy, and colorfully swashbuckling—uttered witty quotations from old poets that skewered current politics. Tdor missed pretty much all the jokes, but she enjoyed seeing the audience roar with laughter.

They attended the theater twice more, always chosen by Tau, and met for meals at the end of the day, when Evred had finished his studies, and Tdor had had her fill of walking about the ancient city.

When a cold storm heralded the coming of winter, and the streets filled with crackling leaves of many colors, the four met one last time, for the men to take their leave. “Sartor can be miserable in winter,” Tau explained. “We’re heading for the coast, where my son’s ship is currently docked.”

“Where will you go?” Tdor asked.

“Back to Freedom for the winter,” Tau said, and Tdor thought to herself that Evred truly was following in Inda’s footsteps. From the clearness of his gaze, and his quiet smile, she understood that he was as happy as Evred could ever be.

Joret turned to Tdor. “I suggest we return to Nente. It’s a far shorter distance, but the Sartoran Sea in winter weather is not at all enjoyable.”

Tdor agreed, thought she couldn’t prevent her eyes from misting. Life had become so full of farewells.

Then, when the two men walked away, she turned her face firmly north and said to herself that she must cherish the hellos all the more.

* * *

“Welcome home!” Tdan cried when their entourage arrived just ahead of a powerful storm.

 _Home_ , Tdor thought as she hugged the girl. Already?

She considered the concept of home over the next few weeks, as the Adrani court shifted to inside entertainment during the season of sleet and hail and frigid winds.

She also considered how little parents could control the direction their children took in their own lives. Tdan talked more fondly of Darchelde now that she had made her home in Nente: no more complaints about how boring it was. Instead, Tdan chattered about how soon they might lure her mother over for a long visit.

Tdor agreed wholeheartedly, as she observed how Valdon and Joret spoke of their own children, who had been spaced out over the years. Tdor had yet to meet the eldest daughter, who everyone had expected to become crown princess. Tdor gathered that though she had received careful tutoring to that end, she’d gradually gone from dabbling in mage studies to studying magic in earnest, and as kingdoms were chary of monarch-mages, the princess easily gave up the prospect of the throne. That freed her to go up north to the Federation, which had a vast magical library rivaling that in Sartor. Some maintained it was larger.

Their eldest son, also as yet to meet, having grown up in court, very much disliked the idea of being tied down as king. Joret explained one morning while they worked through their odni drills, as snow cats-pawed the long windows down one side of a gallery, that his nature was a cross between Valdon’s and Valdon’s favorite cousin—“You could say he’s serious only about pleasure. He loves Colend,” Joret finished. “If he wasn’t so easy-going, he would be obnoxious with his twenty-four stick folding fans and his fashions. If he has any passion, it’s for music. He lives in Colend most of the time, except for attending the Music Festival in Sartor—so we’re probably going to make him the ambassador to Colend when the current one retires.”

Tdor had nothing to say to that, the notion of ambassadors being pretty much alien to her experience. Perhaps she’d assumed some of Evred’s old skepticism, but to her they seemed nothing more than polite spies.

That left Macael, who was a splendid mix of his father’s affable nature and Joret’s sober diligence. The fact that he wanted to marry Tdan, Tdor discovered to her surprise as New Year’s Week drew near, was considered an advantage instead of a drawback: princes regularly married outside their country, to diplomatic benefit. Official letters arrived making it clear that Hastred—whose grandmother had been a Shagal of Anaeran-Adrani, though in another branch—was quite pleased by the diplomatic connection, which strengthened trade ties.

New Year’s Week came and went, as Tdan drew Gramma Tdor into the young people’s games and dances and talks. The two often talked about home, and the concept of home, Tdor saying in various ways, “Home is where you love most.”

Tdor accepted that, but privately thought that it was so easy for the young to be so definite. She missed Choreid Elgaer, but the thought of going back still hurt too much. The last batch of letters she received before the passes snowed in made it clear to her that Tenthen’s life had reformed into smooth channels. As it should be. If she were to return, what would she do? She couldn’t displace her sons’ wives.

Tdor also missed Darchelde, which held her daughter. Though Tdan pestered her to make her home in Nente, Tdor refused to think of the future until spring, at least. She wholeheartedly threw herself into life in the palace . . .

. . . until the day deep in winter, just before they were going to go downstairs to the a masquerade ball they were hosting, the Chief Scribe himself came to the king and queen, and with unwonted sobriety said, “There is a letter for Princess Tdor. From the Land of the Venn.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world's most powerful magic.

Tdor felt that ‘Princess’ Tdor was an invisible mask, of the sort the young people put on for these masquerade balls.

She’d noted in amazement that they seemed to love dressing up as historical figures, as current famous figures (Elgar the Fox made unlikely appearances in velvet and lace, with a great jeweled sword at his or her side, and Jeje the Pirate Queen was a frequent figure, always gowned in red), and even as each other.

Tdan and Macael had new costumes for that night’s masquerade, she in tunic, and trousers, and boots, and he in a trailing gown of rose lace over cream silk, with ribbons everywhere, including in his hair.

But the masquerade was momentarily forgotten when they came to chivvy the older generation into hurrying, and found Tdor sitting in her day robe, with a letter in her hand, and a golden magical token in the other hand, as Joret stood by, looking worried.

Valdon stayed in the background, sensing the conflict between the two Marlovan women. It was clear to him that Tdor had prompted this surprising invitation from the Land of the Venn. Such things did not arrive by accident.

Joret said softly, “Tdor, this is a terrible idea. The Venn can’t harbor anything but ill will toward Marlovans in general. And if they find out you’re the wife of the man who defeated them, what’s to stop them from taking out that defeat on you?”

“But it’s from Signi,” Tdor said. “I don’t believe she’d let that happen.”

“Of course you won’t go,” Tdan crooned, standing before Tdor. She made a surprisingly handsome stripling.

“She can’t leave us,” Macael chimed in, applying his fan hard enough to set his ribbons a-flutter. “We need you here,” he coaxed. “There’s so very much more to do! We’ll be going snow-sledding, and there are also ice sleds.” Then, in an effort to lighten the atmosphere, “Besides, Papa said he wants your opinion on The Project.”

Everyone smiled at that, even Joret, for the king had been threatening to write a treatise on kingship for Macael’s benefit. The idea afforded the family a lot of laughter.

Tdor heard herself say, “I’ll be back.”

Tdan and Macael took off their masks. Dancing forgotten, they earnestly began trying to talk her out of venturing to the far and dangerous north, until Joret reminded them that the guests had surely assembled below, and were now waiting for their hosts to appear. Further, nothing would be decided that night.

They agreed, but Tdor was aware of four worried looks cast her way as she disappeared to fetch her green and silver House tunic—she invariably went to masquerades as her old self.

Later, when the guests were gone, and the servants had begun the tasks of restoring the ballroom as the candles guttered and the clerestory windows blued in the east, Joret and Valdon added their voices to those of the youngsters.

Tdor wasn’t even certain why, but the more reasonably they pointed out the various disasters sure to strike—beginning with “The Venn! _No one_ would want to actually go there! We just got rid of them coming _here_ , scarce years ago!”— the more certain Tdor was that she ought to go.

She finally said to Valdon, “Let’s make a deal. If I return, you have to write that testament you keep threatening.”

Silence met that, then he said slowly, “Then you have to read it. And I’ll burn any page that doesn’t make you laugh.”

Tdan and Macael watched the older folk, intuiting that there was something else beneath the question and promise: that Tdor was not going north intending to get herself killed. Whatever reason she saw for doing so weird a thing, she did intend to come back. And Valdon was hinting as hard as he could that she had a place here if she so desired.

So the two young people stayed silent, as Tdor’s eyes shone with the prickle of tears she would not let fall. “Done.”

They left her alone.

She looked around the pleasant chamber Joret had given her, thinking: how do I prepare? Should I write anyone first?

She suspected her children would be as adamant as her granddaughter had been: it was a crazy idea. But surely Shendan would not cavil, Tdor thought. She’d been Signi’s champion ever since Signi had given her that magic book.

But then Tdor remembered that unaccountable flare of temper Shendan had shown at the prospect of Tdor going over the mountain to the Adranis—scarcely an unknown lair of terror. What would she say about this visit to the Land of the Venn? Tdor understood the young people being worried—and cherished the fact that they cared enough to worry—but the sad truth was, they tended to regard old people as rather hapless. Well, Tdor remembered distinctly that she’d been much the same when she was young.

But Shendan, her own age! She ought to have known better.

As Tdor walked slowly around the quiet room, she let her mind drift back through memory. Shen had always been like a summer storm, quick to lightning and thunder, then spring sunshine and even rainbows. That day, in her magic room, calling Tdor oblivious in one breath, and in the next rattling on about the trip as if she hadn’t said anything, while never looking up . . .

That. _That_ was the moment that was so unlike her.

Or somewhat unlike her.

Shen had always been a restless person, saying something then looking away, or bouncing to the other side of the room, as if scattering her words like leaves in a wind. She’d made that dig at Inda, which had hurt, even if it was true about his obliviousness to certain matters. Hadand had found his obliviousness to Evred’s steadfast passion annoying, but Tdor had always been grateful that Inda had never had a clue. She knew that if Inda had ever figured out how Evred felt about him, he would have been racked with guilt and remorse—

Oh.

_Oh._

The memories streamed: Shendan as a teen, always protective, always cheering, always watching out for Tdor. Could it be possible? Sarcastic, unromantic Shen? Shen who’d never stayed with the same lover long?

Then Tdor remembered Fox and his book. She’d asked him why he was writing it, and his sardonic voice and face, so much like Shen’s as he talked about Inda’s gifts to the world . . .

Oh.

Guilt seized her, to be breathed out. She had to accept that it was very possible Fox had shared, in his own way, Evred’s passion for Inda . . . and (face it square, you owe it to her) Shendan might very well have felt that way about Tdor.

Nobody could control love, not the most powerful king or queen living. It just was, and in as many varieties as birds and butterflies. Maybe more. She had to accept the possibility, and be grateful that there was yet more love in the world than she had hitherto perceived. In spite of a single unrequited passion, all three—the Montredavan-An siblings and Evred—had not gone without love, and further had made excellent lives for themselves. That, Tdor must remember, and celebrate.

But at the same time, she would protect this insight that Shendan seemed to want hidden. Tdor could not give Shendan herself, but she could give her the affection and respect of lifelong friendship, expressed through as many letters with as much detail as Shendan wished.

Her gaze fell to the desk, and the paper there. Another thing she could do: pester Signi for another magic book for Shendan's great dream.

Yes, there were as many ways to express love as there were kinds. Her heart full, Tdor promised herself to celebrate them all.


End file.
